Thanks, David, for passing this along to me. I am amused.
(and it’s true: let the dude smoke if he needs to)
You know, as I was about to push POST on this, I realized that I couldn’t think of any Republican videos or spoofs similar to this one. I mean, this is definitely a Pro-Obama, Pro-Democratic Party video. Where are all the funny and insightful videos for Republicans? There must be some (even though I think the universe of material is going to be much smaller).
One of my favorite xkcd comics ever. It bears repeating:
Happy Autumnal Equinox! Congratulations on making it 1/4 of the way around the Sun (from my arbitrarily determined start point). This is, of course, our free annual trip that includes not one, but two stopovers at the celestial equator. Well, I should say it includes two points at which the Sun crosses the celestial equator, these points in time being known as the equinoxes.
Today’s equinox occurs at 0309 UTC (that’s tomorrow in England) otherwise known as 11:09 PM Eastern Daylight Time. So if you’re up at that time, or whatever time it happens to be in your particular time zone, stand an egg on its end and celebrate our orbital parameters.
I am returned from another year of Dragon*Con. As I posted to my twitter stream, I believe I left everything on the field. The last several years of Dragon*Con have been all about the night life for me, which means that sleep becomes seriously sacrificed. My normal sleep schedule is 4 AM to 8 AM for three nights and I think I got slightly less than that on average during the Con.
I only entered my home about two hours ago and I’m about to crash. Here is a summary of some postings that will likely appear here soon:
I will also post the pictures I took, but for now, you can content yourself with this flickr stream search.
We often get mail that is addressed to “Mr. & Mrs. William Ruhsam”1. Or just to “Bill and Jenn Ruhsam”. Or better yet, horribly misspelled “Bill & Jenn Rubslumsraaqq”. At the cat clinic we take Psyche to, I’m “Mr. Bowie” which entertains the hell out of me.
Sometimes, though, Jenn and I have this conversation.
1: For clarity, we are “Bill Ruhsam and Jenn Bowie” or reversed. More formally of course we are “William M. Ruhsam Jr. and Dr. Jennifer L. Bowie”. If you feel like being perverse, you can send mail to “Dr. and Mr. Bowie”
Last night I attended The Night of Astounding Peculiarities at Lenny’s Bar in Atlanta. We were treated to entertainment by Thimblerig Circus (show above), Witness the Apotheosis, and the always extraordinary Extraordinary Contraptions!
If you haven’t heard the Contraptions play, I highly recommend it. If you have, they’re unveiling new stuff right now! I head a song last night that I’d never heard before (“Hollow”) and it rocked. They’ll be playing Dragon*Con in two weeks.
Witness the Apotheosis was excellent as well. I have missed them several times running and was happy to finally get to hear them, and of course Thimblerig Circus is always entertaining. They perform their death-defying knife throwing, fire eating, nail-bed lying, pin juggling circus act with wonderful aplomb.
Images from last night’s festivities can be found at the flickr set. There weren’t any good shots of the Contraptions, except for one, but you can find others here and here and here.
I’m not a programmer yet I find this enormously amusing. It probably wouldn’t be as much fun if it were in English.
And don’t forget to click on the vuvuzela button!
In three…two…one…NOW!
Congratulations on surviving our free annual trip around the sun. I understand that next year’s journey is being cut 5% due to the economic downturn.
Bruce Schneier linked to a declassified sabotage manual from WWII (pdf). It’s an easy quick read if you’re interested.
It contains a lot of general ideas of how to be a pain in the ass to an occupying power. It mainly advocates low-level irritation and minor sabotage that, if combined with the actions of other people, would make a drain on the enemie’s war-fighting effort.
However, I was struck by this passage (page 32 of the linked pdf). For context, the person being instructed would be an employee that wishes to resist an occupying invader. Here’s how to subtract value from an organization:
(11) General Interference with Organisations and Production
(a) Organizations and Conferences
(1) Insist on doing everything through “channels.” Never permit short-cuts to be taken in order to expedite decisions.
(2) Make “speeches.” Talk as frequently as possible and at great length. Illustrate your “points” by long anecdotes and accounts of personal experiences. Never hesitate to make a few appropriate “patriotic” comments.
(3) When possible, refer all matters to committees, for “further study and consideration.” Attempt to make the committees as large as possible — never less than five.
(4) Bring up irrelevant issues as frequently as possible.
(5) Haggle over precise wordings of communications, minutes, resolutions.
(6) Refer back to matters decided upon at the last meeting and attempt to re-open the question of the advisability of that decision.
(7) Advocate “caution.” Be “reasonable” and urge your fellow-conferees to be “reasonable” and avoid haste which might result in embarrassments or difficulties later on.
(8) Be worried about the propriety of any decision — raise the question of whether such action as is contemplated lies within the jurisdiction of the group or whether it might conflict with the policy of some higher echelon.
I don’t know about you, but that describes quite accurately some weeks I’ve had at work.
I think there is an opportunity here for a teachable moment. The next time we’re discussing how to make meetings and the job more efficient, I should whip this out.